Slouching Towards Bethlehem
by 4MeJasper
Summary: I'm taking another run at my vampire world story, originally posted as The Insurgency. I'm telling the story of my MarySue-style Bella from the start, as she sets off across the Aro's vampire-controlled world, seeking to free her people: the human race. At the same time, vampires Jasper and Carlisle sense their mate exists somewhere, and begin their search for her.
1. Chapter 1

Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I just like playing with the characters.

In the year 2020, Vampires took control of society, and ordered all humans placed in vampire custody. The people who were not captured formed a Resistance movement, headed by the Human Council, which began to plan the Insurgence.

The backstory to my story comes from hitntr01's amazing In Need of Rescue. You should read her story, as it's better than anything I have ever written, and is very scary. I am using her concepts of the farms, the machines that are used to draw human blood, the vampire language Vampiri, and the Rules with her permission. Everything else is my own concoction, and I freely take the blame for it.

Chapter 1 - Memories

All my early memories are of pain. The terrible pain of the electric shocks given by the death camp guards; those shocks from the electric cattle prods that lit up the darkness behind my closed eyes and sent me into spasms, writhing on the cold concrete floor of my cell block.

It's generally thought that it was because of this pain and my hatred of my tormentors that I was given the twin gifts: the Sword of the Sun and my own toxic blood.

I found the Sword at the darkest moment of my life, and the poison that ran through my blood was only discovered later, by accident, after I survived an attack. Any vampire who tasted my blood, however small the amount, was no longer immortal. Their immortality ended the second they sipped my unwilling blood, as they would die when I did. And they all tasted it, as my blood was harvested and sold in bottles in the grocery store.

This was all thanks to Aro's master plan of making human blood available to anyone with the money to buy it. Aro had set up the camps as part of his newly created world order in the year 2020. The camps were designed to house humans for the controlled harvesting of blood, which was sent out to the public through a centralized distribution process that marketed to his new vampire-controlled world. Because he disregarded the legends of humans with toxic blood, and pooled all of the blood taken from all facilities, my private poison was available throughout his entire vampire world for about $2.50/bottle.

Everyone else in my barracks, twenty other occupants, pleaded with me not to fight. Why go through this pain? Just go to the room with the machines quietly, and let the machines draw the blood as they were designed to do. Then there wouldn't be problems with the guards.

But I never could just let them take my blood. Even though I had been bred specifically for the purpose, my blood, body and soul were my own. I didn't exist for vampires to freely feed upon.

THANK YOU FOR READING. PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW. ALL REVIEWERS WILL GET AN EXCERPT FROM MY NEXT CHAPTER.

I'll be doing occasional updates to this story until after the completion of my other story, Her Keeper. Then I should have a more regular posting schedule.


	2. Chapter 2 - Stealing the Sky

I'm going to take another run at my vampire world story again, the one I originally posted as The Insurgency. I'm telling my unabashedly Mary-Sue style Bella story from the start, as she sets off across the Aro's vampire-controlled world, seeking to free her people. The human race.

Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I just like playing with the characters.

The backstory to my story comes from hitntr01's amazing In Need of Rescue. You should read her story, as it's better than anything I have ever written, and is very scary. I am using her concepts of the farms, the vampire language Vampiri, the Rules, and the machines that are used to draw human blood with her permission. Everything else is my own concoction, and I freely take the blame for it.

Chapter 2 - Life in the Dark – early days – Stealing the Sky

Early memories – growing up among the whispers about life outside, as we moved silently through the semi-darkness of our days. We didn't need to speak in low tones, but we felt that the vampires could hear us, so we whispered. Or they, the older women who had lived before 2020, whispered. They spoke longingly about life outside, describing to us the miracle of trees, sunlight, rivers and flowers; plentiful food in varieties and abundance; animals such as cats and dogs, birds and wild beasts; cities and countrysides; cars and airplanes. All things that those of us born in confinement would never see for ourselves.

That world belonged to _them_, now: the vampires-and the guards were our only contact with it. We didn't know much about them, only that they were a constant presence inside our cell, one during the day, and a different one at night. Usually it was the same guard each day, unlocking the front door of our cell as they entered, to relieve one another at the end of their respective shifts. They stood silently in our midst, seldom moving. We led our limited lives around them as they stood as sentinels, silent reminders of what our lives meant and had become.

We knew we weren't the only people being held in this place. We could hear the others, in the showers of the communal bathrooms during the times when we weren't allowed in. Occasionally we even saw them being marched past our cell. They would lift their heads slightly to peer in at us as they passed. With their gray downcast faces, slender bodies in thin cotton dresses, and the slow movement of their bare feet as they made their silent parade down the hall with a guard accompanying them, they held up a mirror to ourselves of how we must appear.

We only saw the women passing us, but we knew there were men elsewhere in the building. We didn't know exactly how many, we only knew that men were kept here, just as women, and that the boy children, as they approached the age of five, were taken from us and moved to the men's cells, not to be seen again.

The older woman kept talking about their former lives, the lives they had while still free. They said that the vampires had no right to steal the sky. That seemed to summarize everything for them – they had taken our world.

Those of us born after the Event of July 2020 had never seen anything but these concrete rooms. We lived shadow lives, without access to natural light. No sky, no trees, no grass. We were taught colors from each other's bodies. Brown, yellow and black from one another's hair and eyes, pink from lips, white from teeth, and green, blue and purple primarily from the ever changing colors of our bruises. Our bruises, which were the direct result of contact with the guards.

Or from the children's contact with the guards.

The older girls had much more to fear. As they reached the age of 16, the vampires grew more interested in them. They started going alone to doctor appointments.

The older women starting asking questions of the returning girls as soon as the girls were taken to the appointments alone. It would be a matter of a few days before they would be called to the front wall, consisting of iron bars, and taken out. Sometimes they would come back, and sometimes they wouldn't.

Those who were returned spoke of being sent to rooms where they were ordered to have sexual relations with five human men, strangers to us as we had no casual contact with the other inmates of our camp. According to the girls, the men were not willing participants either, but all perfomed their parts, both male and female, in order to avoid the guards' cattle prods. They did this once a day over a five day period. After they returned to our group, the girls would undergo monthly check-ups. If their periods came, it meant another solo trip to the doctor, and another five day period elsewhere in the facility, where another attempt was made to impregnate them. But we always knew when they became pregnant, as they would come back from their doctor visits with a purple band on their wrist. A band that may as well have been black, as it signified a death sentence for the wearer.

The older women claimed that pregnancy used to be an occasion for joy. They spoke of attending baby showers, preparing nurseries, sharing sonograms, attending birthing classes and looking forward to "the blessed event," all part of how pregnancy was treated in the old world.

Now, pregnancy was a death sentence. When a girl came back from a doctor visit with a purple arm band, we knew it was the beginning of her end. She would get marginally more food than the rest of us, but she would start to waste away, beginning to complain of vague pains as her stomach began to protrude. The toll of the growing child was too much on their bodies, started of sunlight and nutrition as they were.

All of these 16 year olds broke their backs and hips prior to delivering, and spent weeks in horrific pain which they struggled to hide from the guards, seeking to prolong their lives.

The other women did what they could to keep the girls from experiencing such injuries, but once the injury occurred, it became truly disabling as there was very limited medical care, and no pain medication or antibiotics. Once the girl was unable to walk to the bathroom or rise from her cot in the morning, she was taken away. We never saw any of them again. In most instances, after a few days, one of the guards would bring in an infant and silently hand the child to my mother, who was the unofficial leader of our group. This child was now to be raised-to be bled-like the rest of us.

PLEASE REVIEW. I WILL SEND AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEXT CHAPTER TO ALL REVIEWERS

Please note, I will be updating this occasionally until after I finish posting my other story, Her Keeper. Then I should have a more regular posting schedule.

Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3 - The Escape

I'm going to take another run at my vampire world story again, the one I originally posted as The Insurgency. I'm telling my unabashedly Mary-Sue style Bella story from the start, as she sets off across the Aro's vampire-controlled world, seeking to free her people. The human race.

Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I just like playing with the characters.

The backstory to my story comes from hitntr01's amazing In Need of Rescue. You should read her story, as it is better than anything I have ever written, and is very scary. I am using her concepts of the farms, the vampire language Vampiri, the Rules, and the machines that are used to draw human blood with her permission. Everything else is my own concoction, and I freely take the blame for it.

Chapter 3 – Life in the Dark – the Escape

I was not fated to live and die as the other girls on the ward did. All along, I had fought allowing the Guards to take my blood. Every other week, the same experience – the other women would line up to go to the blood drawing machine. I would stand back.

The guards would come into the barred room and surround me, as I stared at the floor defiantly, refusing to move, and bracing myself for what was to come. They would make a single gesture for me to follow the others before they started using their electric cattle prods on me. The pain was excruciating, and I could only stay conscious for a short time. I would wake up, twitching, lying in a pool of my own urine. But I wouldn't get up and go to that room willingly. Wherever I may have been born, for whatever purpose, I would not freely hand over my blood to my captors.

The Resistance doctor says I had over a hundred scars from these sessions with the guards. My human eyes can only see about forty, mostly on my legs.

In addition to the guard and occasional doctor, there was one other vampire who seemed to come came periodically to check out the girls in my cell. He was distinctive in part because he always wore a formal suit, not a uniform like the guards did. He once chanced to be in the barracks during one of my torture sessions when I was twelve years old. From my vantage point on the floor, before I passed out from the pain, I saw him watching with interest. He always looked in on me after that, appraisingly.

My blood ran cold, thinking of what he might want with me. Fortunately, I was not to find out.

When I was thirteen years old, one night I was awakened with a hand over my mouth. I was instantly wide awake, terrified, as we all lived in mortal fear of being attacked by the guards while we slept. They occasionally made visits at night, attacking a woman in the dark while they muffled her screams with their hand. But this hand was warm, so I knew that meant it was human.

It was Mother. Once she saw that I recognized her, she leaned back and put a finger to her lips, signaling me to be quiet. When I nodded, she silently gestured for me to follow her. The guard, always stationed in our unit, was missing from his usual post in the middle of the floor, so we were able to move without being seen.

We slipped into the darkened shower room. Usually this door was locked, but she pulled out a wedge of soap that was holding the door open. I followed her, using memory to avoid the simple metal sinks that lined the narrow wash area across from the toilets.

I could see a dim light ahead from the shower area. She turned to me, her thin face now visible in the light from the outside. There was a figure in front of us, standing in the open door. It was a male. Was it a guard?

I froze, fearing to take another step. Escape attempts, though rare, were met with death upon recapture. No one in my cell had ever escaped, but some of the girls who met with the men had heard stories from the men's quarters. The guards made examples out of any humans who attempted to break from the line and run while being led from room to room. We had never heard of anyone actually making it outside the living death camp walls.

But tonight, it was a human man standing before us, gesturing us forward while looking furtively to the right and left. My skin began to prickle with fear, as something felt wrong with the situation, but we were all eager for a chance to get out, to get away, so I went ahead.

Stepping outside into the cold night air, I looked for the trees and sky that I had been told about all my life. But I could barely see anything. There were tiny specks of light overhead in the black vault of the sky, so those must be stars. Not far off, to the right, I could see dark shadows made of slender stick-like figures, objects I guessed were trees without leaves. But my attention was quickly pulled to what was under my feet, not over my head. The ground was hard, bare, and very cold on my bare feet.

The man gestured for us to go right, towards the trees, while he took the two other girls who were waiting for us by the door with him and went left. Mother and I ran, as quietly as we could, towards the bare trees, when I heard the sound of the door closing behind us.

I froze and started to duck, but Mother grabbed my hand and started running, pulling me along behind her.

I could hear our feet slapping on the bare ground, and knew that if I could hear it, so could the guards. We heard the terrifying sound of a girl's scream of fear behind us, and we started running as fast as we could. We got to a hill, and she started down it, sliding down when it got too steep to walk. She gestured for me to imitate her, and grab onto rocks and small sticks emerging from the hillside to keep from falling headlong into the ditch below us.

I followed, and somehow, by turns stumbling, sliding, and scrambling, we made it to the bottom. We were now standing by a narrow ribbon of water. Its surface was solid milky white, and glittered in the moonlight. I hadn't seen ice, but I realized what it had to be. We walked along beside it, quietly, for a short distance when suddenly we saw a silhouette ahead of us in the moonlight.

Human or vampire? My heart beat faster, but we walked forward, determined, keeping our heads down. The dark silhouette moved to stand just in front of us at an impossible speed, revealing him to be an immortal.

It was the night guard from our cell. My mouth went dry and I began to shake from fear as I clutched Mother's hand.

It had been a set-up. Why else would he have been waiting outside, ahead of us?

PLEASE REVIEW. I WILL SEND A PREVIEW OF THE NEXT CHAPTER TO ALL REVIEWERS.

I know the updates have been slow on this story. I am working on a few other stories right now as well, and once they are completed, I will begin regular postings.


	4. Chapter 4 - the Guard's House

I'm going to take another run at my vampire world story again, the one I originally posted as The Insurgency. I'm telling my unabashedly Mary-Sue style Bella story from the start, as she sets off across the Aro's vampire-controlled world, seeking to free her people. The human race.

Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I just like playing with the characters.

The backstory to my story comes from hitntr01's amazing In Need of Rescue. You should read her story, as it's better than anything I have ever written, and is very scary. I am using her concepts of the farms, the vampire language Vampiri, the Rules, and the machines that are used to draw human blood with her permission. Everything else is my own concoction, and I freely take the blame for it.

Chapter 4 – The Guard's House

_Human or vampire? My heart beat faster, but we walked ahead, determined, keeping our heads down. The dark silhouette moved to be just in front of us at impossible speed, revealing him to be an immortal. It was the night guard. My mouth went dry. _

_It had been a set-up. Why else would he have been waiting outside, ahead of us?_

It was the night guard. Mother pulled me behind her and approached him slowly, head down, her free hand stretched out in front appealingly.

With terrifying speed, he reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her towards him and taking hold of my wrist at the same time. He yanked her forward, pushing her head to the side, sinking his teeth into her neck, while I struggled futilely in his cold, strong grasp. I had never had a vampire hold me like this before – his hand was freezing cold, like being held in a vice of stone.

I watched in horror as she began to choke on her own blood, gasping for breath, while he moaned and sigh, pulling her body closer to his chest as her struggles grew weaker.

Finally he dropped her to the ground. I fell on top of her, and watched as her eyes closed and her lips appeared to form one last word, my name, "Bella." I grabbed her, but the vampire put his hand around my waist, lifting me off of her still warm body.

"She's not dead yet," I yelled, overwhelmed with sorrow and fear. "Let me go!"

He instantly released my waist and put his hand over my mouth, giving me another second to wrap my arms tighter around her. Under her body I found a long rock, which for some reason I grabbed and held with me as he yanked me away from her and set off into the darkness.

I struggled but finally went limp in his arms as he carried me to an unknown destination. Maybe he was going back to the barracks? I doubted it, since he had been waiting outside.

But my mind began to dull, growing heavy and dark under the weight of the horror of what I had seen. I felt as though I was watching something happening to someone else.

Time became meaningless to me. Vague sensations passed through my mind, until bright lights and the sounds of voices brought the world back into focus.

We were inside of a place, a structure with a ceiling, floor and walls, but the resemblance to the room I had spent my life in ended there. This room had color. The walls had patterns on them of green and white, and there were a variety of objects inside the room. Probably the sofas and chairs that had been described to me by the older women in the barracks. We must be in the guard's house, I thought.

Another being, appearing human, but undoubtedly a vampire as he looked too beautiful to be mortal, was looking down at me and talking.

"What's wrong with her?" I heard him ask.

"She's afraid of me," came the response from the guard.

_I'm not afraid of you_, I thought dully. Whether I said it aloud I don't know. It was too much trouble to move, though I felt occasional pain, which I thought came from slaps to my face or hands by the guard.

I was moved again, and felt myself being lowered into water_. Cold_, I thought. This wall of this room were pink and shiny, made up of small squares outlined in white. The container of water I was lying in was white, and long enough to hold a body. It seemed made of something smooth and cold. _Bathtub_, I thought.

But my mind started seeing other things as well. Curious things. At first they were just images flashing across my mind, then slowing and coming into focus.

It was as if I was seeing the world through someone else's eyes. I was gazing into at a lush, dark forest at sunset, and looking down I could see I was wearing something supple yet heavy. Listening. Waiting. In my hand, a long metal object. A sword.

Then the vampire voices brought me back to my painful reality.

"Is this all you got?" I heard someone say to the guard.

"Yeah, they caught the other two. The brothel will give me something for just her, though," the guard replied.

I knew it was the guard, though I had never heard him speak. The guards never spoke around humans on the barracks.

Then the pink room with the bathtub and vampires faded, and I was in that forest again, wearing that strange clothing, holding that weapon. I balanced it in my hand, hefting it experiementally. Heavy, yet something I could…wield. I felt a strength and power I had never known in my life, here in this other world. My senses were on edge. Something was approaching. I felt fear tempered with expectation inside, rising, and I realized I was ready to fight. I felt my body starting to slip fully into this other memory…

But I was suddenly jerked back into the white room, the one with the cold water and the vampires.

A new voice joined the other two.

"I'll give you $50 cash for her, right now," said the new voice, also male, though higher pitched.

Someone laughed a deep, malicious laugh.

"The brothels will pay me more," the guard muttered, splashing water on my face.

"Looking like that?" the high-pitched speaker said. "She's so bony. No meat on her, no breasts or hips. And she's not responding. $100. And I'll take care of the body, so that no one will ever know."

"They have ways to make them respond in the brothels," I heard the deep voice say again.

Their voices faded again as the world of the forest surrounded me completely. I was now one with the person whose eyes I had been seeing through. Slowly I became aware that the birds had stopped singing, and there was no sound but the wind and my own breathing. My enemy appeared at the edge of the wood, and I turned to face him. Though he was standing partly in the forest's shadow, I could see his unearthly beauty. This was no mortal foe; it was an immortal. I pulled my sword to the ready and waited for the moment to attack. Raising my sword, holding it horizontally in front of me, the long blade glinted in the rays of the evening sun.

Where was I? Which world was real? As I felt myself slipping away between these two worlds, I realized I was feeling something in my hand. That rock I had found earlier felt like the hilt of the sword. I gripped it tightly.

A sharp pain in my foot brought me back to the room with the cold water and vampires. The world where I was overwhelmed from having just watched the murder of my mother.

"That should have made her respond," said the deep voice. "They hate having their feet handled like that. Pinch a toe that hard, and it should have made her jump. She may not survive the trip to the brothel."

"Better get moving, then," the guard said, starting to lift me from the tub.

"Wait. There's this crazy chick nomad in town," came the high pitched speaker. "She used to be an EMT. Get her to look at the girl. She probably wouldn't charge you much."

"Good idea," the guard said. "Give me her number."

Then it was silent in the room. I felt they had left, and I was back in that forest world, in another time, watching the immortal approach.

PLEASE REVIEW. I WILL SEND A PREVIEW OF THE NEXT CHAPTER TO ALL REVIEWERS.


	5. Chapter 5 Meeting the Crazy Chick Nomad

I'm going to take another run at my vampire world story again, the one I originally posted as The Insurgency. I'm telling my unabashedly Mary-Sue style Bella story from the start, as she sets off across the Aro's vampire-controlled world, seeking to free her people. The human race.

Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I just like playing with the characters.

The backstory to my story comes from hitntr01's amazing In Need of Rescue. You should read her story, as it's better than anything I have ever written, and is very scary. I am using her concepts of the farms, the vampire language Vampiri, the Rules, and the machines that are used to draw human blood with her permission. Everything else is my own concoction, and I freely take the blame for it.

January, 2037

Chapter 5 - Meeting the Crazy Chick Nomad

_"Wait. There's this crazy chick nomad in town," said the high-pitched speaker. "She used to be an EMT. Get her to look at the girl. She probably wouldn't charge you much."_

_"Good idea," the guard said. "Give me her number." _

_Then it was silent in the room. I felt they had left, and I was back in that forest world, in another time, watching the immortal approach._

I don't know how long I was in that forest world. I felt as though I had lived out lifetimes there. I saw and experienced many things, scenes of fights and fires, of armies moving in the night. I traveled down roads on horseback and on foot, sometimes wearing armor and other times just simple robes. I passed men and women on these roads, slept in beds and on the forest floor, walking through sun, rain, and snow. I both felt and inflicted pain, and witnessed the deaths of many others, both mortal and immortal.

Finally there came a vision of what must have been this other person's death. And then a vision of his immortal killer breaking the one constant in this world, the ever-present sword, by smashing it over his knee.

Suddenly I felt a pinch.

A pinch? Only people pinched. Maybe this had all just been a terrible nightmare, the escape and the death of my mother? I fought my way back from this dream world and opened my eyes.

In front of me, barely visible through my blurred vision, was a girl's face. "Hello, beautiful you," whispered a soft, unfamiliar voice.

I blinked several times and forced myself to focus, and when I looked again I saw blonde hair framing a heart-shaped face. And in the middle of that face were bright, cherry red eyes. It was a vampire trick.

I closed my eyes, and started to slip off. But immediately I felt light slaps and pinches.

"No, don't leave me!" she whispered frantically. "Stay with me! I have something to show you. It's worth your seeing, I promise. Just stay here with me."

I partially opened one eye, just to get my bearings. I was lying on something soft, unlike anything I had felt before. Moving my fingers, I noticed they seemed to glide across silky material. Then I saw the vampress was sitting next to me on the bed, her head turned slightly away from me. I saw her mouth move, though I couldn't hear her voice. Suddenly the guard appeared next to her.

Now I could read her lips. Lip reading was one thing we learned to do well on the barrack.

"See that spot on her nose?" the vampress was telling the guard. "She's contagious – the brothel won't take her until you get that treated. Look more closely."

The guard leaned over me, his long face and red eyes coming closer, just as they had in my nightmares, when I thought he was coming to attack me. But suddenly he was jerked backwards away from me. The vampress was behind him, pulling on his head, twisting it.

She finally twisted his off and flung it away, off of the end of the bed.

I opened my eyes fully now. She had said she would show me something worth seeing, and this was worth watching.

Now she was crouched over his body, pulling at one of his arms. She finally twisted it off, and flung it over the foot of the bed, too. Once she had pulled the other arm off, she tugged the body off the bed. I started to sit up in order to watch.

"Look, he's in the fireplace burning," she said. "He can't hurt you now."

At the foot of the bed, there was something bright, orange yellow and red. She was in the process of folding up the guard's body, putting his legs against his chest, and shoving him into the fire. This didn't appear to be easy, as she had to keep pushing his body back in.

_This must be fire_, I thought. I had heard so much about it, but never actually seen it before, not in real life. There was a sweet smell and purplish smoke coming from it. We sat and watched for a while, until finally the last bit of torso and leg fell apart as ashes. Then she turned to me.

"So, are you OK?" she asked.

I look around. Is she speaking to me? I mean, vampires don't talk to humans. But if I don't answer, who knows what would happen. "I guess so," I replied cautiously.

"We're getting out of here," she said simply. She jumped up from in front of the fireplace and seemed to have vanished, only to reappear just as suddenly. "Where are your clothes?" she asked. "There's nothing but men's clothes in the closet and dresser."

"I don't live here," I replied.

"You don't?" she asked. "How did you get here, then?"

"He carried me," I replied.

"Who was he to you?" she asked, puzzled, pushing her hair out of her face.

"He was one of the guards."

"You're from the farm then?" she said gently.

"Yes," I told her. "My mother and I got out through a back door, but he killed her and brought me here."

"I'm so sorry," she said, sounding sad. "No wonder you're a bit fuzzy. Well, we're leaving, and we're going to put all of this behind us. Here, put on one of his coats and some sweats, and let's go."

She tugged some clothes onto me and helped me out the bedroom door into another room. It was large, dark, smelled strange, and had several large machines in it.

Pulling something from her pocket, she tapped it, and one of the machines beeped.

"This will be our chariot," she said. Pulling the machine open, she guided me inside. I looked around, puzzled. She paused, then leaned over me and tugged a strap across my front.

"Seatbelt, baby," she said. "It's for your protection. Always put these on when you're in a car."

So this was a car.

With that, she got in on the other side, and took off.

"We're getting out of here," she mumbled as she pulled out onto the street. "Killing vampires, as long as you're a vampire, is not such a terrible crime, but still. I know just where we're going to go. There's only one place, at a time like this: The Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland."

Disneyland? I wondered. I had heard of it. It was a place the older women talked about as a vacation spot.

Why would we go there now? I closed my eyes, and sank back into my dream world.

PLEASE REVIEW. I WILL SEND AN EXCERPT OF THE NEXT CHAPTER TO ALL REVIEWERS.


	6. Chapter 6 - Disneyland

I'm going to take another run at my vampire world story again, the one I originally posted as The Insurgency. I'm telling my unabashedly Mary-Sue style Bella story from the start, as she sets off across the Aro's vampire-controlled world, seeking to free her people. The human race.

Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I just like playing with the characters.

The backstory to my story comes from hitntr01's amazing In Need of Rescue. You should read her story, as it's better than anything I have ever written, and is very scary. I am using her concepts of the farms, the vampire language Vampiri, the Rules, and the machines that are used to draw human blood with her permission. Everything else is my own concoction, and I freely take the blame for it.

January, 2037

Chapter 6 – Disneyland, the Happiest Place on Earth

_We're getting out of here," the vampress mumbled as she pulled out onto the street. "Killing vampires, as long as you're a vampire, is not such a terrible crime, but still. I know just where we're going to go. There's only one place, at a time like this: The Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland."_

_Disneyland? I wondered. I had heard of it. It was a place the older women talked about as a vacation spot. _

_Why would we go there now? I closed my eyes, and sank back into my dream world. _

But the dreams that had absorbed me so completely, showing me new worlds, seemed to have forsaken me. I was tossing restlessly, trying to get the rest I needed, but somehow only revisiting the horrors of the aborted escape or the vampire guard's house when I closed my eyes. Finally I gave up on sleep and watched the vampress drive in silence. As the day wore on, she introduced herself.

"My name's Wenda," she said. "What's your name?"

"My name died when my mother did," I said, not knowing where I got the strength to turn down a vampire's request.

"I can't say I understand what you're going through," she replied, not seeming offended, "but we'll come up with something. For now, I'm going to call you Baby, OK?"

I nodded. "Are you the crazy chick nomad, the EMT?" I asked.

"That would be me. I like that, 'crazy chick nomad.'" She laughed. "That's it! You call me Crazy, and I'll call you Baby! We'll figure out a name for you, soon enough. Are you hungry?"

I realized that I was ravenous, and my stomach started growling. So I nodded, even though my stomach had just answered for me.

"We'll get you something soon," Crazy said. "We're in Kansas now, and there's a B&B coming up. Sorry, that stands for a Bed and Breakfast. I checked while you were sleeping. I called ahead, and they said they always have something on hand for human companions."

_Human companions_? I thought. _Was that what I was?_ _She was certainly acting differently than the guards._

Within a few minutes, we pulled up to a house alongside the road. Even to my inexperienced eye, it looked nice. There was a swing in the front yard, and knee-high flower bushes topped with bright pink flowers lined the walkway. When we went to the door, my stomach started growling even more. Something inside smelled wonderful.

A friendly vampress, wearing a blue dress with her hair in a bun, opened the door and looked out at us. "Oh, here you are!" she exclaimed. "And look how adorable your little one is!"

Crazy beamed and I shuffled my feet nervous, self-conscious about my rumbling stomach.

"Come in, come in!" The vampress said. "I have warm muffins and I've made up some sandwiches for the road."

We entered the house, and I looked around furtively. Unlike the guard's house, this one matched, in many details, the descriptions I had heard all my life of the interior of a house.

Inside the front door, there was a long room where photos hung on the wall. This hallway opened onto a welcoming room, filled comfortable looking chairs which were covered in white cloth with small pink patterns. There was a carpet that ran throughout the house in a tan color. I dug my toes into it experimentally as we walked. I heard a regular clicking noise from behind me in the hall, and turned to see a long wooden box with a circular dial in the top portion, which I realized must be a clock. A grandfather clock, that's what they called them, I was quite sure.

The vampress took us into what must have been the dining room, a room dominated by a large table covered in white cloth, surrounded by wooden chairs. She put a plate in front of me, and set what looked like a brown piece of bread on it. I reached towards it, and then paused. As I waited, I could see steam rising from it, and I realized it was still warm.

"That's a muffin, Baby," Crazy said quietly. I nodded, and she pushed a knife in my direction. I picked it up, carefully cut the muffin into four pieces, then put one in my mouth.

I had never had warm bread before, though I had heard my mother talk about it. She had loved to bake, she used to tell me. The pieces were soft, unlike any bread we had been given on the barrack. I finished it quickly, and then saw there was a napkin next to the plate. Picking it up, I tapped it to my lips, just as the adults had told us to do "when we got out, and got to eat some decent food."

I felt quite comfortable here, but after I finished my muffin, it was clear that Crazy was ready to leave. I had been shown to a bathroom, and after using it and washing up, I came back out. The vampress had given Crazy a box, and they were both standing in the hallway by the door.

"You two come back, any time you're out this way," the vampress told us, and we left.

We got back on the road quickly, and soon we were talking, or rather, she was talking, pointing out items along the route, and I was listening. My eyes started getting heavy, though I was trying hard to concentrate on what she was telling me.

Finally, she seemed to notice my fatigue, "You're sleepy. I had forgotten how that is, as it's been so long since I've slept. Vampires don't sleep, you know. So go ahead and get some sleep if you want. We're in New Mexico now, and we'll be in California tomorrow."

The next morning, when I woke up, we were driving in the mountains. "Getting close, Baby," she said. "We should be here in a few hours. Just over that next ridge, you'll be able to see Los Angeles."

She was right. Soon we came to the top of a ridge, and looking ahead, I could see a large basin, filled with buildings in all directions. She sped down the mountainside at dizzying speed, and several times I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to look over the edge of the road into the gulleys and valleys below.

Soon we were driving in an urban area. But this area was not clean and nice, like the area around the vampress' house. There were cars lining the roads, many damaged or parked at odd angles with their doors open, and weeds were growing up through cracks in the street. The buildings all had broken windows, and the area had a look of dereliction even to my unaccustomed eye.

"We'll be through this part soon, Baby. You might want to look at a magazine or something. It's pretty depressing here," she said, reaching into the backseat and pulling out a shiny, glossy book. The front had a woman on it, though she didn't look like any woman I had ever seen. She was looking outward with a focused look, holding herself stiffly. The top of the book said "Vogue" in large letters.

So this was a fashion magazine. I flipped through it, puzzling at the odd, bright colors of the clothes people were wearing. Most of the dresses and outfits did not look comfortable, and most of the people wearing them didn't look happy, if they were even facing the viewer.

"What do you think?" Crazy asked, obviously surprised by my reaction.

"They don't look happy," I replied. "I thought people used to be happy, before…"

"That's a fashion magazine. It's designed to sell clothes and jewelry, mostly. Or a lifestyle. Something. People used to be happy, or at least those who had enough to eat and somewhere to live. They may not have thought they were happy, but they were free. You don't know what you've got until you lose it. And you guys lost a lot…"

Finally we pulled up onto a very large freeway ramp, one that seemed to lead directly to buildings. Crazy was clearly excited. "This is it!" she said. "We're here! Let the fun being!"

After parking the car, we entered a large white building. "This is the hotel we're going to stay at," Crazy told me. "Once we're in our room, I'll get you something to eat."

As we entered, we were greeted by several male vampires, wearing shorts and very colorful shirts. I slipped behind her, and she laughed. "These guys are OK," she told me softly. To the vampires, she said, "She's just tired. Can we get to our room?"

Once we were in a room, Crazy picked up a piece of paper from a small table. "Room Service, Baby! Hmmm….looks like the choices are…pancakes, pancakes or…pancakes. "

"That sounds good," I replied. "I heard of them, but never had them."

So I had pancakes that morning. And they were good. Before the muffin yesterday, I had never had hot food before. The smell, the taste, and most especially, the way I felt full afterwards. There was orange juice as well. It was cold and tart, almost burning my mouth as I drank it.

"So, those guys downstairs were big Disneyland fans, see?" Crazy told me. "One of them even got a job here, part time, back when humans were still free, because he was fascinated by the equipment. After Aro's Vampire Order was implemented, these guys decided to take it over and keep it going.

Sometimes, people come here," she told me in a conspiratorial tone. "They usually close the park for a Private Party when someone brings a human with them. I come here all the time, and they let me in on those days, because they know I'm friendly."

We went outside, and after I got used to the bright sunlight, I was stunned at what lay ahead of us.

There were long open walkways between colorful buildings and structures. Odd wavy shapes rose above and around us, some connected to tall towers. I had seen towers in my strange dreams, but most of the ones in my dreams were made of stone. By contrast, these ones in front of me were colorful and appeared open.

"Rollercoaster rides," Crazy told me, following my eyes. "In the old days, this place would be wall-to-wall people. It could be hard to walk. Now, of course, the space is wide open. Just us today, actually. I told them I was bringing a human friend, and they closed it for a Private Party.

I think we'll skip the Haunted House this time and go straight to the Matterhorn."

We made our down the walkway, and as we went I gaped at the buildings and structures on either side of us. There were low buildings with colorful items in the windows; tiny wooden structures with tables next to them; and pools of water, both large and small. I noticed that the larger pools, which looked like they might be small lakes, had boats on them.

Soon we reached the ride that Crazy was interested in, the Matterhorn. I was curious what this was all about, since we had driven such a long way to get here.

There were several new vampires here, and though they had initially frightened me, Crazy kept assuring me that they were friendly, and had kept this place, Disneyland, going for the past two decades. They brought up a little mini-car, shaped like a log, and went on a long, stomach-churning fast ride, partially through darkness, partially through light. We were splashed a few times, and I tried hard to grasp what was supposed to be fun about the experience.

When we got to the bottom, I was glad to get out of the little cart, as I was feeling shaky.

"Do we have to do another one now?" I asked, not sure what I could say to the obviously friendly vampress.

"I'm sorry, baby. We'll go let you get some rest at the hotel."

Once we got back to the hotel room, she looked at me. "Did you have fun at all?" she asked sadly.

"It was like nothing I've ever experienced before," I replied honestly, pushing a smile out with a great deal of effort.

Crazy bounced a little on the bed. "I just thought…well, you're young. You've just been through something terrible, and I thought…this is my favorite place, and I wanted to share it, that's all."

She was clearly earnest and seemed to really care. I smiled sadly. "Maybe I'm just too tired for fun right now," I said softly.

She nodded. "Tomorrow, we can just rest and look out the window. Maybe go for a boat ride on that lake in the afternoon."

"That sounds nice," I told her.

That night, I woke up screaming. Crazy was over me instantly. "What is it, baby? What's happening in there, inside your dreams?"

"It's my mother. I keep seeing her lying on the ground…"

Wenda stared at me. "He left her body on the ground?" she said, sounding shocked.

I nodded, clutching my knees to my chest, still trying to recover.

She grumbled to herself. "Of course he did. I'm going to go take care of that. I have a friend coming, and he'll stay with you. I'll bury her."

"Can you bury her in the cemetery?" I asked, pushing my luck.

She paused. "Was there one nearby?"

"She said we weren't far from home. That during all those years, we had never been far from home. When she was taken by the vampire from her house, the bus had only driven for less than an hour…"

"OK. Then I'll find her and bury her in the cemetery," Crazy declared. "I'll come back, and when things get better, you can visit her grave, OK?"

I felt better, and soon fell asleep.

Later that night I woke up, sensing someone else had entered the room. As I sat up, I noticed the long rock was in my hand. The light next to the bed switched on, and I saw Crazy standing next to a man.

"Baby, this is my friend, Jetsun Milarepa. I call him Jet for short," she said, introducing him with a giggle.

The male vampire was bald, about medium height, and wore a black suit. He bowed to me.

"A pleasure to meet you," he said, leaning towards me with a friendly smile.

As he extended his hand towards mine, I realized he wanted to shake it. I automatically switched the rock from one hand to another.

"Interesting," he said, looking closely at the long rock. "What is that in your hand? You're holding it…like a sword."

"Found it," I mumbled.

"Ah, I see," he replied with a knowing smile. "Well, Crazy is heading back east to take care of things, and I'll stay here with you until she returns."

I liked this man. He seemed so calm. His eyes and expression were intense, but kind.

He and I spent the next day together, just walking through the park. We fed the swans that were gliding across the lake, but to my relief, he did not suggest going on the rides. I felt myself drawn to the stranger and trusting him.

Finally I asked him, "How did you become a vampire?"

"I lead a rather wild youth," he told me. "I killed a lot of people in a fit of rage, at a time when it wasn't common to kill people. This was over 800 years ago.

I gasped. "You're 800?!"

He smiled. "Yes. I withdrew from the world, and sought spiritual cleansing, attempting to study with various masters in my homeland after my rash actions. As a result of the…well, intense meditation, it seems to have given me extra ability in the 'gift' I have."

"And what is your gift?" I asked.

"I can read minds," he replied.

I froze.

"Well, almost all minds," he said. "But not yours. It is quite closed to me. And I am quite curious. You woke up, holding that object like the hilt of a sword. I would know, as I slept with mine for years."

"I grew up on a living death camp," I said. "I found this on the ground, after my mother died. I've kept it, as it's all I have."

"I understand," he nodded. "I am sorry for your loss and sorry to intrude."

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Yeah, the monk's onto her. But that's OK. He is going to be a great friend.


	7. Chapter 7 - Carlisle and the Baby

I'm going to take another run at my vampire world story again, the one I originally posted as The Insurgency. I'm telling my unabashedly Mary-Sue style Bella story from the start, as she sets off across the Aro's vampire-controlled world, seeking to free her people. The human race.

Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I just like playing with the characters.

The backstory to my story comes from hitntr01's amazing In Need of Rescue. You should read her story, as it's better than anything I have ever written, and is very scary. I am using her concepts of the farms, the vampire language Vampiri, the Rules, and the machines that are used to draw human blood with her permission. Everything else is my own concoction, and I freely take the blame for it.

January, 2037

Chapter 7 – Carlisle and the baby

(Carlisle's POV)

Another rainy day. I reach into my bookshelves, looking for something to pass the time, when my thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a distant human voice. "Doctor! Doctor, help please!"

I pause, setting my book on the table. Had I started hallucinating?

The voice was coming from the south, which is the area still inhabited by the Quileutes. There are humans there…but why would they be calling…unless someone really needed me. That call could only be intended for me, as I am the only doctor left in the area.

I decide to go. The Quileutes are our natural enemies, though to my surprise they hadn't killed anyone since Aro's take-over of 2020. They just seemed to have retreated into the woods. Instead of fighting, the shifters had focused their energy on surrounding and protecting their human villagers.

I grab my bag, which I still keep by the door, and head down the road. I slow down as I move further away from the city of Forks, and I soon hear growling from the woods on either side of the road. Just for an instant, then the sound is cut off.

Is this a trap? Are they trying to lure me out of the house so they can attack? Sniffing the wind, I smell the scent of humans. They are to the right, towards the ocean. I decide to go forward, knowing that I will meet someone soon. Someone who won't be happy to see me.

Soon enough, my path is blocked by three huge wolves. They form a semi-circle in front of me and lower their heads, growling.

I put out my hands in front of me, attempting to appease them, and say, "I thought I heard a call for a doctor. I'm here to help. Is there someone who needs me?"

The lead wolf snarls, appearing to prepare leap at me, but then raises his head. They all seem to freeze, and I hear running feet behind them.

"Are you there?" I hear a woman's voice. It stops, and I hear the sound of thrashing, like she is being held.

"If someone needs me, I'm here," I repeat.

Several tense moments pass, and I'm aware that several more wolves have come out of the woods behind me. I'm now surrounded, and I doubt I could fight my way out of this. I'm also sure that if I pull out my phone and call for Jasper and Emmett, the wolves would immediately attack me, and then attack my sons when they arrived.

Finally a young man appears, carrying a wheelchair. He is followed by a second teen-ager, who is carrying an older man. Once they unfold the wheelchair, they place him into it.

I wait patiently, or as patiently as I can, knowing I am surrounded by shifters who are appearing to be barely restrained from attacking me.

"Dr. Cullen?" the older man asks, once he is seated. He has a tan face, lined from exposure to the wind and sun, and his long black hair is worn in a ponytail under his hat.

"Yes," I reply.

"My name is Billy Black. I am the leader of the Quileutes in these troubled times."

I step forward to shake his hand, but the wolves growl, so I stop. Billy Black raises his hand, and the snarls stop. He leans forward and takes my hand in his, shaking it with a tentative gesture. Still, contact has been made, and I'm relieved. Maybe I will survive this encounter after all.

"One of the wives is having a difficult childbirth. We have a nurse, Sue Clearwater, but she says the woman needs a C-section. They called for you. Literally, I believe." He gives a wry look at the road behind him.

A woman with long black hair comes into view behind him. "Let me go," she is saying to a tall man who is holding her by the shoulder. "Don't be a fool. Do you want her to die?"

She pauses at the sight of me. "I didn't know if you would hear me. Can you come?" It took me just a second to register what I am seeing. She is a slender woman, dark-skinned, of medium height, her face marked by three parallel scars. My medical mind immediately wonders how she had managed to keep her eyesight after such an injury.

"I heard you, and I came," I say. "But if surgery is required, it might be better if I have my instruments. Let me see your patient, and I'll decide if there is time to retrieve them.

"This way," she says.

I look at Billy Black. "May I see the patient?"

"Yes," he says. "And…thank you for coming." The wolves behind him growl, but he silences them with a look. Interesting, I think. He clearly is a mortal who cannot shift, yet they accept him as their leader.

"Can we use immortal speed?" I ask.

Billy Black nods, and the one of the two teenagers lift him out of his wheelchair while the other one folds it up. They stand waiting, looking at the girl. One of the wolves nuzzles her. She climbs onto his enormous back, something she appears to be accustomed to do. They turn and start running, and I follow them through the trees to a clearing where their village is located.

In front of me there are a series of houses. All appeared to have been built after 2020, as they are made of wood and appear quite new. Very little metal is in sight. They must have been built using traditional materials as the Quileutes probably don't have access to modern building materials unless they repurpose something from existing structures.

We go inside a small gray building, and I see a woman lying on a bed. She is exhausted, her eyes showing the strain of a long ordeal. They widen when she sees me, though.

I stand in the doorway, bowing my head.

"My name is Dr. Cullen. May I come in?" I ask.

The girl with the scars slips past me and approaches the bed, taking the woman's hand as she kneels next to her. "He's the doctor. Let him look at you. Let him see what he can do for your baby," she whispers to the woman, stroking her sweat-soaked hair with her hand.

It doesn't take long to determine that a C-section is needed. I tell them that I will return quickly with the instruments.

I race back to Forks and find what I need in my old office in the Forks Community Hospital. I don't go to the hospital very often any more. There are only fifteen humans living in Forks now, and all of them are living in vampire households. To my dismay, my own children have taken human pets, humans who are kept in their houses for the purpose of supplying fresh blood on demand.

Returning to the small clearing in the woods, I am shown to a building with a room set up as an operating theater by their nurse, Sue Clearwater. I admire the ingenuity she has used to create a sterile environment using simple, traditional methods for cleaning and sterilization. As I operate, the scenes of my other recent operations flash through my mind. As long as this woman doesn't get an infection, she should live. Over half of my other patients on the vampire farms during the past year have died giving birth. The years spent growing up on the vampire farms, without sunlight and exercise, had taken their toll on their bone growth.

I smile as I lift the child, a beautiful little girl, from the womb and hand her to her mother. After stabilizing the mother, I take my leave and tell Sue Clearwater I will return to check on the mother and newborn in a few days. They can call me if there are any issues before I return.

As I go back to my office, I feel relieved to have done what my calling had been for centuries. I had helped a human with a medical issue. I hadn't set them up for death, or given them a merciful death when there was no other alternative.

Picking up the book I had set down on my desk when I heard the voice calling me hours ago, I wondered what Aro had done. Had he really doomed the human world to extinction within a few generations?

Something had to be done, but Aro seemed to refuse to recognize the problem.

And more personally, Aro's new order had made our lives worse in many respects, rather than better. With a rule that only two vampires could live in any house, my family, or coven as it was considered, had moved out from under my roof. Only Esme and I lived in our beautiful home at the edge of town. Though the other five all stayed nearby in Forks, with the two couples each taking over a house in the city, and Edward moving into his own place, once they were on their own, they started to lose sight of our moral compass.

Within two years, Rose and Alice had persuaded Emmett and Jasper to buy them their own human, as it was trendy. And most recently, Edward had taken a job as a guard at one of the farms. All mind-readers were required to do a certain amount of time on the farms, just as they were required to work in the courts. But Edward had signed on to work on a more permanent basis. I didn't understand why they had moved away from our lifestyle so quickly, as all five were now drinking human blood. I only knew that I was losing my family to this world.

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